COUNTERCLOCKWISE

Faun Fables, the long-running collaboration
between Dawn McCarthy and Nils Frykdahl,

have returned with Counterclockwise, the fol-
low-up to 2016's Born of the Sun. With the

longest space between albums in the band's
twenty-seven year history, the nature of time
and experience spent raising a family and
negotiating life's changes have much to do
with the incredible listening companion Faun
Fables have gifted us here.
Counterclockwise's songs and production
are the most encompassing, richly lived-in
sonic world of their seven full-length albums.
From start to finish, it is an exquisitely etched
portrait of their aesthetic and worldview:
colorfully studded with fine-hewed jewels of
song, tinged with the traditional sounds of
past and future nations.
Their timeless "songtelling" practice
is entwined with a holistic view of a life in

music-embracing and celebrating the mun-
dane details of home, partnering and family,

elevated by a mystical and fantastical per-
spective. The new discovery here is their cre-
ative relationship with time. As Dawn notes

in the album liner:

"Time... the most fertile & playful of mediums, though full of mist...
We mustn't forget time offers itself first as something to be creatively shaped."
To this end, the title conception of "counterclockwise" spins alternatively to the accepted
definition of going against the grain of time. In the Faun family, the passage of time
is an affirmative process evolving through old and new generations. Their time in the
world is an exception to the view of aging into infirmity and death. Instead, it is one
of eternal return, of thought, belief and shared experience living on, becoming young
and growing again. And again!
Counterclockwise began to take form in 2020, its songs brought together from over
a span of fifteen years. Some came from commissioned projects about werewolves,
Mother Goose and other fairy tales. Others were rooted in familial traditions: "The
Wedding" was conceived as an ideal air to be sung at such a gathering; "Lullaby," a

bedtime melody for children, and "Ember Bell," a meditation on the organic complex-
ities of pregnancy. "Widdershins," "Woolsey Street & the Lake of Fire," "Hiawatha,"

and "Black Angels (Czarne Anioly)" have been featured on recent Faun Fables tours
and so represent time in the world before Counterclockwise. Similarly, several cover
songs salute crucial companions from different points in their individual and collective
lives, making deep cuts from Yes and the Bee Gees-as well as the theme song to
70s television program Grizzly Adams-into further chapters of shaped time, well
lived and loved, to indelibly light this collection.
Counterclockwise is the first Faun Fables album engineered and produced by
Dawn and Nils from start to finish. Taking the wheel in the tradition of the engineers
that taught them, they have created a living atmosphere of songs and family. The
chiming and twinkling of bells throughout evokes the richness of the years and the
passage of time. Highlighting the spirit of play, Nils brings his multi-instrumental vision
(as heard in Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Free Salamander Exhibit), contributing
on guitar, bass, flutes, voice, glockenspiel, drums, harmonium, trombone and tenor
sax. Dawn and Nils' wide-ranging vocal harmony tradition is enriched by the voices of
their daughters Edda, Ura and Gurdrin, who contribute on keyboards and percussion,
as well. Norwegian guitarist Arild Hammer lends his singular guitar craft on the
songs "Ember Bell", "Hiawatha", "Wonderous Stories" (on which he also sings) and
"Maybe", as well as the final, essential sounds that close the album.

Dedicated with love to Dawn's late father, Edward 'Will' McCarthy, Counterclock-
wise is an evocation of the essential truth and joy of Faun Fables' relationship with

time, the greatest value they can imagine to give to anyone who listens to their music.